


Hanging Out With Corpses

by parentaladvisorybullshitcontent



Series: Vampire AU [1]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Blood and Gore, M/M, Minor Character Death, Vampire AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-09
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-09-07 12:38:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8801158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parentaladvisorybullshitcontent/pseuds/parentaladvisorybullshitcontent
Summary: Phil meets Dan at a vampire representation demonstration.He ends up watching him and the way he’s gnawing on his thumbnail, looking across at a stall that's selling gluten-free blood substitutes. He stands out in the crowd – not so much because of how much black he’s wearing, but his height. Phil thinks that this is first person he’s seen all day who doesn’t make him feel like a giant.In which Phil is a lonely ex-vampire hunter living in the city and Dan's just a pretty guy who doesn't sleep and wears a lot of black...right?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Months and months ago now me and the wonderful eniworm were talking (more accurately I was talking AT her smh) and the idea for a vampire au was born. This prequel was meant to be posted to celebrate Spooky Week but I was in London during Spooky Week and...I'm really disorganised ok I'm sorry :( anyway, Eni this is for you <3
> 
> Clumsy worldbuilding lies ahead, tread with care. There's probably going to be a second chapter with about 70% more actual phan idk, I'm sorry about this
> 
> Shoutout to The Urge - the one tru vampire phanfic amirite
> 
> I'm laughing at myself bc the title's from Vampires Will Never Hurt You by My Chemical Romance bc I'm T R A S H. I just know I'm gonna live to hate it bc it's wildly inappropriate but...this is a mistake I'm willing to make for the sake of using that song in the title of a vampire au u feel me

Phil's had four jobs since he moved into the city.

He'd tried out being a high-flying executive, but all that'd got him was suits and offices and scary rich men in designer shoes. He'd lasted a month. After that, he'd thought maybe he should've started small – maybe by working in a coffee shop.

Except it quickly emerged he'd misjudged the amount of skill involved in operating a coffee machine with multiple levers and remembering all of the weird names of drinks and if the person had asked for soy milk, and what was that guy's name again?

By his second week he'd broken thirteen mugs – something his unimpressed manager informed him was an all-time record – and inadvertently created a love triangle between two of his coworkers. How was he supposed to know that Brian fancied Stephen? More to the point, how was he supposed to know that Stephen fancied _him_? All Phil did from the moment he stepped through the door to the moment he hung up his apron in the evening was wish to be at home, there wasn't any time for noticing anything else.

He'd resigned the day after Brian had started squaring up to him in the car park after his shift ended. Not that Brian had been particularly intimidating – being threatened was never fun, of course, but Phil was pretty sure he could win in a fight. _More_ than win, even.

That's why he'd quit, really. Along with everything else, he didn't want to end up accompanying an injured Brian to the hospital. He doubted if the police got involved they'd be too impressed with Phil's weak excuses about his hunter credentials and half a lifetime of training to break bones.

His third job had mostly involved stacking shelves, scanning tins of beans and trying his hardest not to hate customers and their unreasonable, stupid demands. He'd lasted a week.

Working in the library had been an accident, really. He'd seen the position advertised for weeks – _Library Night Supervisors Required, Hunting Certification Necessary_ – but his general avoidance of anything that involved hunting anyone meant he'd overlooked it at first in favour of other things.

It's not a bad job, for lots of reasons. He gets a police-issue radio, which is pretty cool. His uniform's ugly, which isn't so cool. Even so, there's something nice about getting to spend long, quiet hours in the library, surrounded by the sounds of tapping keyboards and pages turning, people stumbling in through the doors and yawning before taking up tables to write essays and papers.

Night school doesn't really mean the same thing as it used to. It's more about the vamps who are lucky enough to get signed up for educational programs. That's the only reason why the library's open all night these days.

It's meant to be a mixed library – humans and vamps – but a lot of people complained, saying that they didn't want to risk using the same building as vampires. Or at least, that's what his scary coworker Di had told him when he'd first started.

“Yeah,” She'd said, fiddling with the buttons on her walkie talkie. “There was a big ruckus. 'Course, none of the breathers complaining bothered to think about how the library's only open to vamps after dark, did they? So unless someone's gran gets confused and wants to get a book out at four am, everyone's safe.”

Not that they just get vampires in the library at night. There are a few humans – mostly students with vampire friends and overdue assignments. Phil watches them sometimes, sitting at the big circular tables by the windows, sharing snacks and laughing behind their hands together.

He remembers his mum, warning him off talking to people if they didn't have a pulse, and it makes him sad that he never had...that. The _laughing at 2am with your friends who just so happen to be dead_. He never had that ease, he just had...hunting lessons and target practice.

-

Phil meets Dan at a vampire representation demonstration.

He’s not even supposed to be there, but Bryony had needed someone to hand out flyers and sell badges and Phil’s notoriously terrible at saying no to friends. As a result by the time he meets Dan he’s reeled off the same old spiel about _parliamentary representatives_ and _education_ and _rights_ a thousand times, and he’s more than a little tired of the whole thing. He thinks he wouldn't mind so much if he'd actually seen some vampires – as far as he can tell, there are more teenagers with black lipstick and chokers than there are actual _undead citizens_ (which is what someone across the square keeps calling them through a megaphone).

“I don’t understand why they’re running this in the middle of the day,” A girl says to Phil at one point, breathless and fluttery. Her neck's covered in the shimmery lotion that's popular with lots of vampire groupies these days, the stuff that smells like strawberries and makes your skin glimmer from about a mile away. As though hungry vampires need _encouragement_. “Like, surely there are no actual vamps out at this time?”

“Actually, the daylight thing’s a common misconception,” Phil tells her automatically. “Like, um. Other than some eye irritation, it’s – it’s totally fine for them to walk around during the day.”

 _Lester Family Vampire Hunting Rule Number 6: don’t let your guard down just because it’s daytime_.

Except clearly not everyone’s family gatherings involved a lot of sharp knives and glossy photographs of vamp nests, because the girl starts giving him these worrying, speculative glances, smiling a little, and he backs away quickly, saying, “Not me, I’m not – I’m not – I’m _not_ , sorry!”

The girl’s noise of disappointment follows him as he tries to lose himself in the crowd.

The only reason he goes over to Dan is because he’s trying to approach as many people as possible, but there’s something vaguely likely looking about him and his dark clothes.

As long as he lives Phil will never understand the obsession with wearing black that lots of vampires have. Sometimes it’s just habit, like the ones you see who wander around in the stuff they were buried in. But Phil can tell straight off the bat that this guy’s not one of those people, because he's way too well-dressed - and _clean_ , for that matter.

His hair's too good to have just crawled out of a grave, Phil finds himself thinking, stupidly.

Phil ends up watching him for a second, and the way he’s gnawing on his thumbnail, looking across at a stall that's selling _gluten-free blood substitutes_. He stands out in the crowd – not so much because of how much black he’s wearing, but his height. Phil thinks that this is first person he’s seen all day who doesn’t make him feel like a giant.

“Hey,” Phil says, plucking up the courage to go and stand next to him. “Can I interest you in a badge?”

The guy blinks, first at Phil and then down at the offered badge. It's black, and the white lettering says, _dead people are still people_.

“Erm,” The guy says.

“I mean,” Phil says, because sometimes he doesn’t know when to shut up. “It’d match your whole, uh, outfit.”

The guy smiles.

“True,” He says. “Um. Yeah, sure. How much?”

Phil nearly says, _it’s free for you_. By _nearly_ , he means that he considers saying it for a fraction of a second and then his brain hits him right back with a list of possible consequences and the days of cringing even daring to say something like that would entail.

“A quid?” He says, in the end. When the guy starts going through his jacket pockets, Phil feels the need to add, “Or, like, any sort of donation, it doesn’t really matter.”

The guy drops a pound coin into Phil’s donation tin and takes the badge.

“Thanks,” Phil says.

There's an awkwardly prolonged moment when the guy struggles to fix the badge to the front of his jacket, and then he looks up and smiles.

“There you go,” Phil says, stupidly.

He's only just clocked the fact that the stranger has dimples when the guy says, “I should, er,...” and walks away, moving through the crowd with ease.

Phil doesn't dwell on the thought of him, because that'd be weird. He only thinks now, looking back and knowing Dan, that maybe he should've been struck dumb by that first meeting. He should've been left reeling by his smile, or something.

Real life doesn't work that way, though. Instead, Phil just sighs and carries on trying to sell badges.

-

Contrary to what he sees on the news sometimes, pro-vamp demonstrations aren't really that interesting unless you're, well, a vamp. Or into vampires. Not that Phil's anti-vampire – far from it – he just can't really get all interested in ointment that eases the pain of concealed fangs or stalls shouting about how to market yourself to living employers.

It makes him sad that places like this have to exist – demonstrations where people who had the misfortune of dying can be helped to feel normal again. Then again, he thinks, guiltily, without all of the anti-vampire legislation, he wouldn't have a job at all.

“You shouldn't think of it like that,” One of Bryony's vamp friends had said, once. She'd definitely been high, all sleepy-eyed and wanting to touch him, her skin startlingly cool against his. “You should think of it, like, you're the good guy on the inside of a bad system. You know?”

Phil could think of it like that – or he could think about how he's profiting off an unfair society. It depends on how he's feeling.

“Vampire classifications are unnecessary and oppressive!” Bryony's saying into a megaphone when Phil edges over to her, carefully not meeting anyone's eye. He's been mistaken for a vampire one too many times today. “Internet access should not be a privilege solely for the living!”

“Bry,” He says, quietly, touching her on the shoulder. “I'm gonna head off, alright?”

“Oh,” She says, blinking, surprised out of protest mode. “Oh, ok. Thanks so much for coming.”

She hugs him, and he smiles at her. He's barely walked a metre when she's shouting down the megaphone again. An activist's work is never done, he thinks.

-

It's lonely, living in the city.

Not that Phil would ever admit that to anyone. Admitting that he's lonely feels like admitting that he's made a mistake, that he was too hasty to move far away from home to an unfamiliar place filled with unfamiliar people.

It feels like admitting weakness. If Phil learnt anything during his childhood games of vampire and hunter, it's that admitting weakness is the worst possible thing you can do.

So he doesn't say anything to anyone. He calls his mum and his brother and he talks to the vamps at the library. He forgets to call Louise even though he has a post-it note attached to his laptop screen telling him to use Facebook, use his phone, talk to her _somehow_. He knows speaking to someone – speaking to _her_ \- would instantly make him feel better, but...

Weakness. It's all weakness.

Besides, there's something so soul destroying in contacting old friends and having them talk at length about how great their lives are, and knowing that you can't contribute anything positive in return. Phil feels like he can muddle along the way he is so long as he doesn't have to compare his own long, quiet days with someone else's dazzling, successful existence.

Not that he's _unhappy_. He has a job that pays well. He gets to spend his nights surrounded by books and studious vampires. He's living in an apartment rent free. By all accounts he should be perfectly content.

It's just the lack of people to talk to, he thinks, heading home on another cold September morning. Summer's well and truly gone for good, and there's a crispness in the air as he walks along, feet brushing the first few fallen leaves. The sky's pink up above, and he turns his face up for a moment, squinting against the hints of sunlight, before burying his face in the collar of his coat and hurrying along down the street.

There's something nice about seeing the world waking up as he walks home, preparing to sleep. He sees the postwoman making her rounds, and people walking their dogs, and the occasional slow moving car. He sees bin trucks and people tentatively opening their curtains, letting the faint daylight in. He sees people in pyjama trousers and coats, hurrying off to the corner shop for milk and bread.

There's something surreal about it all, still, the world waking up while Phil's yawning and trying desperately to stay awake.

And then he gets home, cold fingers fumbling over his key and the door handle, and he lets himself into the dusty hallway, absent mindedly hanging his coat up on the hook by the door before he traipses up the stairs. He's usually asleep within half an hour, curled up in bed with the curtains pulled tightly shut, duvet pulled over his head to escape the slivers of sunlight that creep around anyway.

It's not the kind of life he could bring someone else into, he thinks, sometimes. His sleeping hours are messed up, and there are so many vamp activists around these days with hostile attitudes to hunters and their credentials that speaking to new people's a veritable minefield unless he's at work or at one of Bryony's demonstrations.

Even so, that doesn't stop him wanting someone there. Not even romantically, sometimes, it's just – someone to talk to, that'd be nice.

“You talk to me,” Violet points out, when Phil half-tells her his problem one night.

Violet's one of the vamps who visits the library at night. She'd stopped to help him stack abandoned books on the library trolley during his first week in the job, and they've been sort of friends ever since.

“Oh, I know,” Phil says, hurriedly, in case he's offended her. “I know, and – and it's great talking to you-”

“Well, yeah,” Violet says, and makes a show of flipping her hair, grinning at him when he rolls his eyes. “I know what you mean, though. Like...it makes a big difference just having someone to talk to when you get home.”

Phil doesn't know what to say then, because she's hit the nail on the head with deadly accuracy and he feels almost ashamed that she could pinpoint his problem in such a casual way. Violet's still talking, about her friend Penny and how everything's been different since they started living together, and envy rises like bile in the back of his throat.

“...should just look for a flatmate, maybe,” Violet's saying when he tunes back in, focusing on putting books back on shelves instead of looking her in the eye.

“Maybe,” He says, vaguely.

Violet's quiet for a moment, the two of them edging between the shelves, Phil putting books back in their rightful places and Violet occasionally helping him.

“I'm gonna apply for yellow classification,” She says, after a moment, handing him a dog-eared copy of _Jane Eyre_.

“ _What_?” Phil gapes at her. “Seriously? You never said you'd -” He stops, awkwardly. “You know, like...I dunno.”

“I didn't,” Violet says. “I mean – whatever the hell that was, I didn't do that, I just – Penny said she'd help me out.”

Phil stares at her.

“Shut up. Shut _up_ , no way, that's some – that's like the exact plot of every vamp romance novel _ever_.”

Violet laughs at him.

“That's kind of where she got the idea,” She admits, grinning. “It's not so hard, anyway. I mean, I've got the year sober down, I've been, like, clean for three years in December. I used to be a vegan, so...”

“So now you're a vegan again."

“Yeah,” Violet says, evidently pleased with the idea. “Nothing but blood substitutes over here. And then, like – well, I've been living with Pen anyway, so it already looks legit. I'm gonna send my application in tomorrow.”

“Wow,” Phil says.

“I know,” Violet says, pulling a face. “But – I mean, if it goes through I'll be able to apply for jobs again. I'm so sick of owing people money...”

Phil doesn't know an awful lot about the yellow classification process beyond what everyone knows – that you have to be a blue class vampire with no illegal feeds on your record in order to be considered for yellow class. Oh – and you have to prove beyond all doubt that you and your living partner are madly in love.

He knows – mostly from his own job hunting experiences – that yellow class vampires are more likely to be able to successfully apply for jobs. Every other ad when he'd been job hunting had said something about _yellow class vampires only_ , or _blue class vamps need not apply_ , which Phil doesn't understand. He gets the whole thing where being in love with a living person might make you less likely to snack on another living person, but he also knows that yellow class vamps can still hunt in blue zones. It all just seems unnecessary, a bunch of labels specifically designed to make life harder for everyone, dead and living alike.

Phil can't imagine finding someone he'd care about enough to go through the humiliating yellow class interview process with. Maybe if he found someone he was really good friends with, he'd consider going through the rigorous interviews just to help them out. 

Then again, he's a terrible liar and an even worse actor. He'd probably get all the important facts confused and they'd know immediately that he was faking.

“I don't think I could do that,” He says to Violet, stacking more books onto the shelf. “The yellow class thing. I mean – not that I wouldn't want to help someone out, don't get me wrong, but – I'd just get really nervous and mess it all up.”

“No you wouldn't,” Violet says, after a moment. She's leaning on the book trolley, looking thoughtful. “Not if you really cared about the person.”

Phil watches her dreamy expression for a moment.

“So Penny really cares about you?”

“I didn't say that,” Violet says. There's another pause, then she adds in a rush, “Phil I swear, she's so adorable and she blushes sometimes and like – Ian says I only like it because of the whole blood thing but Ian's a dick, alright, I just think it's really cute and _she's_ really cute and –“ She covers her face with her hands abruptly. “I don't know.”

Phil's smiling so hard his face hurts.

“Oh my God,” He says. “This is like a vamp romance novel. Vi...”

“Shut up,” Violet says, but she can't look at him for too long before she buries her face in her hands again.

-

Phil knows he's truly messed up when he finds himself dwelling on the thought of Violet and her friend.

It'd be nice to have someone like that, he thinks. Someone who'd go through all of that just because they cared about you. He hikes his bag further up his back and looks up at the monitoring tower of the nearest blue zone, towering over the neighbourhood. At night it has a searchlight, like an old prison movie, but with the onset of daylight it's unlit. He can still see the people sitting up there in it, though, keeping watch over the blue zone.

Phil's only ever been in a blue zone once before.

He's seen them on TV. Everyone has. The huge fences around them, topped with barbed wire. The monitoring towers that you can see from miles and miles away, where they track predators and prey. Aside from that the zones are the same as they were before the fences got put up – residential areas that've become hunting grounds, fighting grounds, places where criminals are unceremoniously dumped, ready to be hunted down like animals by the blue class vampires who live there.

When Phil was growing up, blue zones didn't really exist. Besides, there were only a few cases of vampires where he lived, at first. It wasn't exactly in the countryside, but it wasn't exactly in the middle of the city either, so at first hunting was scarce and his parent's teachings were purely hypothetical. Phil was already at uni by the time they'd started categorising vampires, creating the blue zones in less desirable areas of built-up cities.

He still doesn't know if he agrees with them. On the one hand, he knows that vampire activists see them as a huge victory – designated hunting areas, accepting human blood as a necessity for undead citizens. On the other hand, releasing criminals into an enclosed area where they'll most likely die within days doesn't exactly sit right with Phil, if he's honest. But the blue zones are something they're all complicit in, like it or not. What's the alternative? Every city becoming one big blue zone? Not everyone's been trained to fight like Phil has.

He looks up at the monitoring tower for a second longer, dark against the rapidly lightening morning sky, and shudders.

-

When he finally gets home, he wraps himself in a blanket like a toga and sleepily makes himself a cup of coffee, just so he can drink something warm before he goes to bed. On his way there, the post-it reminding him to contact Louise catches his eye, peeling away from the corner of his laptop screen.

He looks at it for a moment, hot mug cupped in his cold hands, and then he moves and shuts the laptop so he doesn't have to look at it anymore.

-

Phil's pretty sure the attack wouldn't even have happened if he hadn't been feeling so awful.

He's been battling a cold for days, sniffling unhappily in bed and waking up sweaty and uncomfortable, wheezing and groaning. It's one of the rare times that he misses being at home – his mum was always the best when he had a cold, bringing him soup and hot drinks and insisting that he rest until he felt better.

Adult life, it turns out, is much less forgiving when you have a minor illness. Phil has to drag himself out of bed and into the shower anyway, the hot water making his stuffy head feel a million times worse. He puts his work uniform on like he's in a dream, doesn't bother to eat and stumbles out of the house, feeling dazed and half asleep.

The sun hasn't gone down yet, but there's that evening chill in the air that means it's about to, and Phil pulls his coat tighter about himself with an uncomfortable noise. He should've eaten before he left, he thinks, crossing the road and fumbling in his pockets for a tissue. He should've got up earlier and had a warm drink.

He's caught up in a neverending list of all the things he should've done when someone grabs him tightly, strong arms trying to clamp his own arms down by his sides, immobilising him.

He still feels slow and stupid, so it takes him longer than it normally would to fight his way out of the grip of his would-be attacker and grab hold of a wrist. His mum taught him this – the way to twist in just the right way, the sort of way that’d hurt, blood flow or not.

After he’s got the guy shoved face first into the nearest wall, Phil starts talking.

“What's your class?” He asks, trying to sound commanding even though his nose is blocked and he sounds nasal and ridiculous. The guy just writhes and hisses a little, so Phil presses him into the wall harder, twists his wrist a little more. “If I don’t know your class you’re fair game, you know how it works.”

The guy just hisses again for a minute, making a weird pained noise.

“Green,” He says – which is what they all say, so Phil just laughs, the sound surprised out of him. “No, no, I swear, I’m green, I can show you my card if you’ll just – if you’ll just let me go-“

“Nice try,” Phil says. He’s bluffing – he has no idea whether this guy’s a green vamp or not, but green classifications - the _all you can eat_ pass that certain vamps supposedly get gifted on rare occasions - are so unheard of outside of urban myth that the chances are he isn’t. “Real classification, please.”

“That is my real classification, I’m a green,” The guy insists. “I swear, just let me go!“

“Look,” Phil says, trying to sound patient and menacing both at the same time. He’s pretty sure he just sounds awkward and a little wheezy. “I don’t want to kill you, I – I have to get to work pretty soon. Just tell me your class and I can take you to the nearest clinic, alright?”

The guy just hisses again. Phil doesn’t know if it’s meant to be menacing but all it does is make him think of Parseltongue, and he’s pretty sure that’s not what the guy’s going for. There’s a moment when he makes awkward eye contact with Phil over his shoulder, and then he stops hissing and trying to struggle with a sigh.

“Ok,” He says. “Ok – I’m a blue. I shouldn’t have gone for you. Sorry.”

Phil rolls his eyes. “You couldn’t just take the bus to the blue zone? It’s, like, fifteen minutes away.”

“I know,” The guy says. “I just – it’s like when you see a pizza place on the way home, you know?”

“Jesus,” Phil says, and loosens his grip a little, pulling a face. “Come on, then, I’ll take you to –“

He doesn’t even manage to finish his sentence before the guy goes for him again, human features curling into an animalistic snarl. Everything happens very quickly after that – Phil hits the ground with a painful thud that makes him wheeze, knocking the air out of his lungs, and then the guy’s on top of him and his breath’s hot and gross and Phil’s trying his hardest to throw him off-

Except someone else drags the guy off Phil. There’s a flash of bright metal, and the thud of someone being thrown against a wall, and then another pained noise.

“Blue zone,” An unfamiliar voice is saying. “Short walk that way, what the fuck?”

Phil scrambles to his feet. His nose is running again, but whoever it is who dragged the guy off him seems to have everything under control, so he feels safe enough to blow his nose into a tissue.

“Sorry,” He says, when the guy looks back over at him, evidently disbelieving. Phil sees that he actually has a knife pressed to the vamp guy's throat. “Sorry, I just – I have a cold, sorry.”

“Dan,” The vamp's saying. “Come on, I was just – he was just – I'll go to the blue zone now, I'll go, alright?”

"No snacking on the way there," The stranger with the knife says, voice low.

"No, I won't, I - c'mon, Dan-"

There's a moment when Phil thinks the Dan guy might just stab the vamp, even though he's pretty sure the knife he's got isn't strong enough to break though his sternum. He's about to say as much – or suggest that the two of them escort the vampire to the nearest clinic together, when the stranger just steps back and lets the vampire go.

He hurries off down the street, straightening his coat as he goes, looking for all the world like someone who's realised they're late for a train, rather than someone who just tried to kill Phil in the middle of the street.

“Wow,” Phil says, hating how bunged up he sounds when the stranger turns to look at him, attack pose relaxing a little. “Thanks for that. I'm – I'm not feeling so great, or he wouldn't – wouldn't normally have managed to...” He sneezes.

“It's ok.” The guy politely averts his eyes while Phil blows his nose into a fresh tissue. “I, er. I was just headed to, um. I like to - oh, you're the badge guy,” He says, at last.

Phil blinks at him, blearily, not getting it, until the guy pulls his coat to one side to reveal a thin jacket underneath, with the _dead people are still people_ badge attached to it.

“Oh,” Phil says, vaguely remembering this guy, the way he vaguely remembers all of the pretty people he sees around – in the _they're out of your league and will never talk to you_ kind of way. “Oh, yeah, that's me, I'm the badge guy. Er. Phil, I'm Phil.”

“Dan,” Dan says, with a smile.

“So, er,” Phil can feel a sneeze coming on, so he tries to speak as quickly as possible. “Thanks for that, really. Like. Sorry.” He sneezes. This never happened in Buffy, he thinks, stupidly. “Do you have, like, a hunter classification? Because that was – that was pretty cool.”

He sounds weak and pathetic to his own ears. If Dan notices, he doesn't say anything.

“No, no classification,” He says, smile fading a little. “I just – I live near the blue zone, so I try and, um. You never know when you'll...you know.” He gestures, vaguely, in the direction the vampire just left in.

Phil nods.

“Well, I should, I work the night shift at the library,” He says, lamely. “I should, erm. Before I'm late.”

To his surprise, Dan smiles and breathes out something that could be a laugh.

“Sorry,” He says. “I just – I promise I'm not, like, stalking you, but – that's where I was headed.” He swings his bag around and pulls a library book out in evidence.

“Oh,” Phil says, smiling just because Dan is. He can't decide if this means the universe is on his side or dead set against him. “Oh, er. Well. It's this way.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mere words cannot express how relieved I am that this is DONE. Blimey. I'm so unbelievably sorry about the wait for this (remember when I planned to post it for spooky week? Jesus), and I'm sorry for any mediocrity you're about to experience. Forgive me
> 
> As usual I'll be back to edit this in the morning, so apologies for any mistakes (there are definitely mistakes) 
> 
> Shout out to the wonderful Eni, who waited an unbelievably long time for this, and anyone who left kudos or commented or enjoyed the first chapter! Thank you all so much, I know this is different to the stuff I usually write so thank you all so so much for giving it a chance. You're the best <3
> 
> As ever my tumblr is parentaladvisorybullshitcontent (seriously I tried to make a hyperlink work for about twenty mins and I'm gonna cry Jesus fucking Christ) so if you feel like coming at me with that _?????? Pabs wat r u doin with this mild gore_ , feel free to chat to me there, my ask is always open ^^

Just like that, Phil makes a friend.

Well. Not exactly _just like that_. It takes a while – a few weeks of Dan traipsing into the library at sundown, sitting hunched over his Mac for a few hours and then leaving, dropping by the front desk to give Phil an awkward wave goodbye before he goes.

“My wifi's down at home,” Dan explains, when Phil tentatively wonders why he hangs around in the library so late. “I'm a slave to my Tumblr queue, don't judge me.”

Phil's never seen Dan on Tumblr. Not that he's actively looking at what Dan does on the internet or anything, but whenever he happens to walk behind where Dan sits, pushing the trolley around to collect abandoned books, it looks like he's mostly reading articles or writing.

Not that it's any of Phil's business, of course. It's none of his business what any of the library visitors spend their time there doing. There's just something about Dan – about the way he'd skilfully pulled Phil's attacker off him, the fact that he sometimes goes home of an evening with stacks of books, sliding them neatly into his backpack along with his laptop.

“Not seen him 'round here before,” Di says one evening, eyes narrowing suspiciously as Dan wanders along a bookshelf across the library, tilting his head and thoughtfully considering the book titles.

“Me neither,” Phil admits. Then, wanting to defend Dan somehow, he adds, “He helped me out the other day. I, um. Got attacked on the way to work.”

Part of him is embarrassed to admit this to Di, who probably sleeps with one eye open and one hand clutching a sharp knife, but when he explains the situation (maybe putting a little too much emphasis on how bad his cold had been), she nods.

“Everyone gets caught out at least once,” She says, fairly.

Phil nods, thinking about his brother, quick as a flash, and then the scars on the back of Di's hand that creep up her wrist, the scars she's always pulling her uniform sleeves down to cover, marks that only sharp, hungry teeth could've caused.

“Yeah,” He says, clenching his own unmarked hand into a fist and releasing. “Well, um. I'm lucky he was there, that's all.”

Di doesn't watch Dan so closely after that.

-

“What made you want to work in a library?”

Phil thinks he's alone in the reference section, so he jumps and nearly drops a giant Spanish dictionary on his foot.

“Jesus,” He hisses, turning to find that he's still alone in the reference section. Pausing, one hand on the dictionary and one hand on his walkie talkie, he says, “Hello?”

“Over here,” The voice says, and a face appears in the gap between the bookshelves. It's Dan, apparently spying on him from the next aisle. “Sorry. Hi.”

“Oh, hi,” Phil says, automatically reaching up to make sure his hair looks ok. “You made me jump.”

“I saw,” Dan says, and smiles, eyes bright. “I was just – wondering. You don't seem like a librarian.”

“I'm not a librarian,” Phil points out, finally shelving the Spanish dictionary in its proper place.

“Well, you don't seem like a shelving books kind of guy, then.”

Phil looks down at the trolley of books he has yet to return to their proper places. He realises, sudden and quiet, that he _likes_ this job. He likes the routine, he likes Di, he likes the free coffee they're allowed to drink endlessly from the crappy machine in the library's dingy photocopying room.

“I'm not, really,” He says, not sure what else to say without bringing up hunting. “Anyway, you don't seem like the kind of guy who'd lurk in libraries at night for free. I mean, I'm getting paid to be here...”

“Internet's down at home,” Dan reminds him. “And I do all my best browsing at night.”

Phil nods.

“I like libraries,” He says, without thinking about how random that is as a response to Dan's lack of internet access. “I mean – that's why I, you know,” He gestures at the books all around him. “They're quiet and – and I dunno.”

Dan just watches him for a moment, dark eyes glinting across the tops of the books. Then he smiles.

“Same,” He says. Taking a step backwards, he adds, “Um, sorry for, like, lurking. I'll just-” He makes a vague hand motion in the direction of the end of the aisle of books he's standing in.

“It's ok,” Phil says. Then, without thinking, he adds, “I was just, er – I think there's some clean-up to do in, like, the young adult section, if you wanted to...” He shrugs, feeling stupid.

To his surprise, Dan just smiles again.

“Sure,” He says.

-

Dan ends up trailing around after Phil on and off for the rest of the night.

“I'm downloading something,” He explains, at one point, hands in his hoodie pockets. “I mean. It's taking forever, so...”

Phil just nods and smiles when he turns away to shelve more books.

Truthfully, it's nice to have company. He hasn't heard from Violet in a while - he thinks maybe she's given up her library time to prepare for her yellow classification checks – and he hadn't realised how much he'd missed having someone else to talk to at work until that evening, with Dan trailing after him as he pushed the library trolley, reshelving books and whispering to each other in the quiet.

“See you tomorrow?” Dan says, after he's packed all of his stuff back into his bag a few hours later. Phil had been switched to desk duty, and Dan had lingered nearby, carrying on their earlier conversations.

“Yeah,” Phil says, feeling curiously warm at the bashful way Dan ducks his head, avoiding his eye. “See you tomorrow.”

-

“It's not a thing.”

“It is! I should do a study on it.”

“Ah, I dunno, I feel like studies require, like, time spent away from Tumblr,” Phil teases.

For a second he worries that they haven't known each other long enough for him to get away with jokes like that, but Dan just rolls his eyes, grinning.

“Shut up, I could do it.” He mimes a banner shape in the air with his hands. “ _A Study On Library Clothing_ by Dan.”

“Nobel Prize guaranteed,” Phil says with a grin, just as a guy comes up to the library desk with a few books.

He scans and stamps them on autopilot, well used to this routine after working here for so long. Part of him expects Dan to go back to the table where his Mac's set up, but he doesn't – Phil watches out of the corner of his eye as he runs his fingers along all of the leaflets in the little stand on the library desk, clearly waiting for Phil to be done so they can talk again.

It's nice, Phil thinks, having a new friend. And then he instantly feels weird for thinking of Dan as his  _friend_ when they've only known each other a matter of weeks. It feels like friendship should be a mutual decision, and he has no idea whether Dan even counts them as friends or if all of their interactions are just the boredom of waiting for stuff to download.

“You need a degree to be a librarian,” Dan tells Phil, when the guy walks away with his books, sliding back across so they're opposite each other.

“I'm not a librarian,” Phil reminds him.

He knows what he means, though. Di told him when he first started that they'd initially tried to offer this job to qualified librarians but they got no respondents. Phil guesses that the people who are both qualified librarians _and_ qualified hunters is probably the worst Venn diagram ever. Or probably not even a Venn diagram, just two unrelated circles.

“Do you have a degree?” Dan asks.

“Yeah,” Phil says, automatically, thinking a little bitterly of his folder at home where he keeps all of his academic documentation, untouched for a long time and probably gathering dust. “What about you?”

“Ah, nope,” Dan says. “College dropout,” He adds, raising his arms in mock celebration.

“What did you drop out of?” Phil asks, curiously. It's the most Dan's revealed about himself since they first started talking. “Like, what course?”

Someone chooses that moment to approach the desk to get some books out, and Dan apologizes and shuffles out of the way again, leaving Phil to scan and stamp books for the girl who's wearing a furry, hot pink onesie. She yawns while she's waiting for Phil to finish, tapping chipped black nails against the library desk. Phil's trying to force down a smile the whole time he's sorting out the books because he just knows what Dan's gonna say as soon as they're alone again.

“Do you see what I mean?” He hisses, sliding back in front of Phil. Phil's already laughing. “D'you see? People just don't give a shit what they wear to the library, it's a thing.”

“Ok, ok,” Phil concedes. He'd only ever disagreed just to make Dan exasperated. There's something funny in watching him wave his hands around in mild agitation, trying to explain himself. “Ok, fine, maybe you're onto something.”

“Maybe,” Dan scoffs. “You mean definitely.”

When he slips off a few minutes later to check on the progress of his download, Phil finds himself watching him a little. Just the line of his arm as he leans on the desk, and the way he unselfconsciously wets his dry lips while he looks at the screen. It's only when someone comes up and asks him about printing that he jumps, flushing, and finally tears his eyes away.

-

They spend more time together as time goes by.

It's weird, how much Phil starts to look forward to work, more than he did before. It's not like when Violet used to come and keep him company, somehow – she didn't stay with him every night, not like Dan does. She'd sit with Phil for an hour or two but then she'd eventually disappear back to her book or a computer to work on something else.

Maybe Dan's just bored, Phil thinks, as he's getting into bed one morning. He's reached the point of tiredness where his eyes feel dry and cold, and he thought as soon as his head touched the pillow he'd drift off.

Instead, he finds himself puzzling through Dan's interest in him with his eyes closed. He thinks about the conversations they have, and the way Dan laughs sometimes – the way he makes Phil laugh. It doesn't make a lot of sense – in fact, it seems to have come out of nowhere. Phil hasn't said anything particularly funny, or done anything particularly interesting, but Dan's still there every night when he goes to work. In fact he's started staying much later than he did before, edging out of the library just as Phil leaves.

It's become a morning ritual of sorts, the pair of them walking off down the street together, shuddering in the cold morning air.

Aside from Phil's constant pondering of what he could possibly have done to attract the attention of someone like Dan, he also worries about how one-sided their friendship is.

When they’d first become friends, Dan had been distant, a little awkward, lingering near the library desk for a few minutes before actually coming over to talk to Phil. Phil remembers catching the way his hands twitched, the way he fidgeted nervously in the moments before he came over to talk about music or Phil’s day or the weather.

He’d never let himself think anything of it. Dan seems friendly, but cautious. The nervousness could be chalked up to the fear of approaching a new person. That’s a feeling that Phil’s more than familiar with, after all.

After a while – after a few weeks of long night shifts and tentative conversations, Phil feels a little like the floodgates have been opened.

“You have hunting certification?” Dan says, boggling at him over his scarf. “Really?”

It’s the middle of December and the early morning walk home is infinitely improved by all the twinkling Christmas lights on the passing houses and Dan, who’s bundled up against the chill. He has the hood up on his huge black coat and a scarf wrapped around his nose and mouth at least three times, so everything he says is a little muffled and strange.

Phil nods and smiles, shoving his cold fingers deeper into his jacket pockets.

“It’s not that great,” He says, half laughing at Dan’s wide eyes. “It was just – a lot of boring days when I was younger, really.”

“Phil,” Dan says, evidently disbelieving.

“Seriously!” Phil says, feeling bashful when Dan keeps staring at him. “I – I was never allowed near any of the cool weapons, and – and people at school thought I was weird, and then – well, I worked on it for years and I got all my, like, certification, and then I realised that I’d literally become a trained killer, and…” He trails off awkwardly, shrugging, feeling his face grow warm. “Not great.”

They walk in silence for a moment. Phil looks upwards at the inky blue sky every so often, watching it steadily getting lighter.

“Did you ever…” Dan starts. “Um. Did you ever, er…” He makes a weird stabbing motion with his hand, surprising a smile out of Phil.

He nods.

“I, um.” He swallows. “Some guy, er. He was gonna rip my brother’s throat out, so. You know.” He shrugs. “Afterwards they – they thought he’d been enthralled, and , erm. It turned out our mum knew his mum, and…” He shrugs again, not wanting to go into all of that. “I don’t even know how enthralment works really, I just – it wasn’t his fault, I know that.”

“It wasn’t yours, either,” Dan says. His shoulders are hunched a little, which Phil recognises after all these weeks as his defensive position. “Enthralment, it’s – they don’t have a choice, it’s just – it’s killing.” He shakes his head. “When a vamp turns someone it’s – they have this control over the person they turned, this – this thrall, and – and if they use it they can make the vampire they turned just…just kill, mindlessly.”

“Oh,” Phil says. He’d known enthralment was a compulsion to kill, but he hadn’t known that other vampires caused it – that they could _control_ each other.

“So, like, there was nothing you could’ve done,” Dan continues, heavily. “He would’ve killed your brother, so – so you had no choice.”

They walk most of the rest of the way in silence. Phil can’t stop yawning, the cold morning air making him somehow feel more tired. He envies Dan and his thick scarf and coat – he should’ve bundled up more when he’d left the house last night.

He thinks about the guy who’d tried to kill his brother. He thinks about his unfocused eyes and his snarl and the way his teeth had glinted in the yellow street lights. He thinks about the moment when his blood had been cold on Phil’s hands and all he’d been able to hear was the thud of his own heartbeat and the wheeze of his brother’s relieved gulps of air.

“Sorry,” Dan says, abruptly, when they reach the corner of Phil’s apartment building, which is where Dan usually leaves him and walks back. “I – I shouldn’t have, like, asked about the whole hunting thing. It’s – it’s your personal business, and-“

“It’s fine,” Phil says, surprised. “Honestly, I wouldn’t have answered if I didn’t want to talk about it.”

Dan frowns for a second, then nods. “Ok,” He says, worried frown softening a little. “It’s still really cool,” He adds, eyes brightening in the way that means he’s smiling somewhere underneath his layers of scarf.

Phil laughs.

“It’s really not,” He says, feeling himself flush. There’s something about Dan’s eyes – about _Dan_ – that constantly makes Phil feel unsure and nervous, somehow. “But I’ll try and, like, make up some cool stories to tell you tomorrow, if you want.”

“Sounds good to me,” Dan says. He just looks at Phil for a moment, and Phil realises they’re standing close enough that he can smell Dan’s aftershave. He thinks Dan realises at the exact same moment as him, because his eyebrows twitch and he takes a step backwards. “I’ll, um. You should get some sleep. And I should – I should go.”

“Be careful,” Phil says, stupidly.

Dan just gives him a look and pats his chest, right over the pocket where he keeps his knife.

“I’ll be fine,” He says. “Although you can walk _me_ home tomorrow, Mr  _Hunting Certification_.”

“Deal,” Phil says, feeling hot and awkward, his face aching from how much he’s smiling.

After that, he doesn’t see Dan for a week.

That’s why their friendship’s one sided, he thinks, on a dreary evening spent returning books to their proper places alone. Every time he feels like they’re getting somewhere, or talking like regular people, Dan seems to drift away from him somehow.

Not that he thinks Dan’s absence has anything to do with _him_ specifically. It just happens a lot, that’s all. They talk - Dan has moments when he seems uncomfortable, and then Phil doesn’t see him for a few days.

It’s like Dan’s Mac. The first time he’d taken it out of his bag and set it down on one of the library tables, Phil couldn’t help but stare, wondering what happened for it to get it into that state.

It’s covered in scratches that almost look like claw marks, and a lot of the damage is covered by thick lines of duct tape. Phil doesn't even know how the thing still works, but it must do because Dan shows up every day with it.

Once, Phil made the mistake of asking Dan what happened to it. He doesn't think he'd asked in an obnoxiously, or aggressively – he's gone over it a lot, just wondering, because of what'd happened afterwards.

He'd asked, and Dan had gone very still, face lit up by the weak glow of the battered laptop screen, and then he'd smiled.

“If I told you that I'd have to kill you,” He'd said, lightly.

Phil hadn't really thought anything of it until he didn't see Dan for a few days afterwards. Just like that, he was gone, and Phil's night shift was as slow and dull as it'd been before he'd met him.

Phil had found himself wishing he could ask Violet what she thought of what'd happened – run the conversation by her and figure out if he'd been accidentally offensive in some way. He thought he'd just been harmlessly curious, that's all.

By the time he'd convinced himself that it's all a coincidence and Dan had probably just found a better way to spend his evenings – maybe his wifi got fixed at last – he came back.

“Oh, hey,” Phil had ended up saying, struck dumb a little by the sight of him, wearing his usual black, his hair windswept.

“Hey,” Dan had said, expression brightening when he’d spotted Phil wheeling the book trolley out of the back room. “Oh, so you're on trolley duty today?”

“It's my turn, yeah,” Phil said, nodding over at where Di's sitting behind the desk, face hidden by a newspaper. “Di's, um. She can take down a guy with one hit.”

Dan had grinned and said, “I'll be sure not to put any books back in the wrong places, then,” and followed him down between the bookshelves.

Phil had resolved to be a little more cautious about what he said after that. But it’s difficult, because sometimes it feels like anything can make Dan freeze in place like Phil just insulted him.

And yet at the same time, it seems like he wants to know everything there is to know about Phil. He always asks for little details about Phil’s life, his hunting certification, his family – but the moment Phil makes any vague references to Dan’s own life he shuts down and won’t even consider the subject. And Phil understands, he really does – he knows that people deserve their privacy, and the last thing he wants is to push Dan into saying more than he wants to say, but it preys on his mind.

Despite how much Phil complains about his hunting certification and his strange childhood, he’s well aware that he had an idyllic upbringing compared to a lot of people. Not everyone can talk about themselves or their lives with the ease that he can.

Even so, the more time they spend together - the more Dan smiles and makes Phil laugh way too loudly in the library, the more Dan insists on walking him home every morning, keeping him company on nearly all of his night shifts – the more Phil wants to know about him. He wants to know about the way he purses his lips when he’s thinking, and the way he frowns, and he wants to know what scared him as a kid and what his favourite constellation is.

He wants the ordinary, humdrum details of friendship, but he’s too worried about scaring Dan away.

-

One day, Phil runs into Dan on his way into work. Dan's standing by the towering fence of the blue zone, idly running his gloved fingers along the metal, his head bowed a little. He's an anonymous figure in a huge black coat with the hood up - Phil would've walked straight past, not recognising him, if it wasn't for the all-too-familiar hunched set of his shoulders.

Phil wonders if he stands like that in the hope that he won't be noticed. He knows the feeling, but he doesn't know why someone like _Dan_ would ever feel like that.

“Hey,” Phil says, walking over to him. He regrets it as soon as Dan jumps as though Phil had shouted, stumbling backwards like he'd been pushed.

“Oh,” He says, voice muffled. His scarf is pulled up over his mouth and nose, like always. Coupled with his hood, there's just a strip of his face visible – the top of his nose and his eyes and a little bit of hair. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Phil says, feeling terrible for startling him. “Sorry, I didn't mean to sneak up on you.”

Dan seems to relax a little.

“It's fine,” He says, his voice muffled but warm.

They end up walking up to the library together. Phil feels as though his tiredness has been dimmed a little by Dan's presence, who makes him laugh as they walk along.

When they get to the library, it's enough time before the changeover to the night staff that Di hasn't gone inside yet – they come across her rummaging in the boot of her car in the car park.

“Hey,” Phil says as they approach. Di turns to face him in an instant, hand raised. Alarmed, he makes a surprised noise and stumbles backwards, knocking into Dan. “Oh – Jesus, fuck, sorry-”

“It's alright,” Di says, sheepishly. There's the glint of something in her hand for a second before she drops her defensive pose. “Don't sneak up on people like that, haven't you seen the news?”

“I've been asleep,” Phil says, still clutching his chest a little. His heart feels like it's about to burst out of him. “Why, what's on the news?”

“Vamp attacks,” Dan says, before Di can even say anything. “Two people are dead and another's missing, last seen by the blue zone.”

“Oh God,” Phil says, wearily. “Which blue zone, not -?” He gestures vaguely over his shoulder in the direction of the looming monitoring tower.

Di nods.

“Tranquilliser guns out tonight,” She says. “But I was thinking about bringing something extra in...”

She looks back into the boot of her car, and Phil automatically looks over too – at the array of weapons she has stashed in there, all neatly organised by size and deadliness, as far as he can tell.

“Jesus Christ,” He says, eyes catching on the glinting barrels of guns. “I think the tranquillisers'll be enough, Di.”

“Hmm,” Di says, and slips whatever weapon she has hidden in her hand into the pocket of her uniform.

-

“Ok, so she's terrifying,” Dan says, a few minutes later, when he and Phil are finally going inside.

Phil shudders a little at the warm air in the library foyer, and watches Dan unwrapping his scarves from around his neck.

“She's ruthless,” He agrees, a little distracted by the sudden exposing of Dan's face – his jawline and his smile. “But awesome. Like, she's the kind of hunter I always thought I'd be when I was a kid, not...” He falters, awkwardly. “Not this.”

“I thought you hated the whole hunting thing,” Dan reminds him.

Phil pulls a face, shrugging off his coat and heading into the main library area, holding the door open for Dan as he goes.

“I never said I _hated_ it,” He says, slipping behind the main desk. Julia, one of the day librarians, is packing up her stuff and doesn't even look up when Dan follows Phil into the little room behind the desk. “I just – I dunno, she makes it look cool.”

“Yeah, well, you're cool enough,” Dan says.

Phil's looking away when Dan speaks, hanging his coat up on the rack behind the door, and when he turns around Dan isn't looking at him. He's facing the noticeboard, apparently fascinated by all the little post-its reminding people to buy sugar and the times of donated book deliveries.

“So,” Phil says. “You, um. You watched the news, then.”

“Sorry?” Dan says, looking over at him. “Oh, yeah. I might've heard something on the radio earlier.”

“Right,” Phil says. He shouldn't say anything, he should just let it go, because if he's wrong he's about to make a massive dick of himself. Even so, he swallows hard and adds, “So, you were just hanging around at the blue zone near my flat for, like, no reason whatsoever, after hearing about there being a bunch of people going missing 'round there.”

Dan blinks for a moment. Phil had really hoped his teasing tone came off alright, but Dan looks a little like he's been hit in the face.

“I wasn't hanging around,” He says, woodenly. “I was just. Standing. Nearby.”

“Just standing nearby,” Phil repeats, feeling so fond of Dan in that moment he feels like he might burst. “You – you know I have hunting certification, right? Like – like – I'll be ok, even if there is some crazed vamp out there.”

“I know,” Dan says, a little defensively, but his expression softens considerably. “I just – safety in numbers, that's all. And I guessed you wouldn't have heard about it because you, like,” He waves a hand. “Sleep all day, or whatever. I dunno.”

Phil breathes out a laugh.

“I'll be fine,” He says, his face warm. “Honestly, I can take care of myself. Although, like – company on the way to work is,” He swallows. “Always good, I guess.”

“Good to know,” Dan says, with a small smile.

-

A few days later, Phil ends up in hospital.

He sits in a plastic chair in the stark white waiting room and pulls his sleeves down over his hands. And again, and again. For some reason it's important that his sleeves fit right, that they fall down over his wrists, even though he'd washed his hands in the bathroom three times, once before the police spoke to him and twice afterwards, staring down at the bright white porcelain of the sink.

He'd stood there for far too long, watching the water sluicing down the drain like he was in a dream.

It's been a long time since he had to wash someone else's blood off his hands. Watching the colour wash away made him think of his brother, of his brother's attacker and his snarling face. It made him think of a thousand times that he'd brandished a weapon without a thought to the consequences.

He slips his phone out of his pocket on autopilot, tapping through to his contacts.

Now would be the time to call Louise. Now would be the time to bite the bullet, stop avoiding questions about his life and just call her. He could be talking to her within a matter of seconds, her voice soft and soothing, knowing exactly what to say to make him smile.

Swallowing hard, trying to breathe normally, Phil hits _call_.

He probably shouldn't ring so late – he'll probably be asleep, but Phil thinks maybe both of their sleeping patterns are messed up enough that this might be ok.

“Hey,” Dan says, answering on the third ring. “Did you decide you wanted to hear that joke after all?”

Phil blinks, trying to remember what he means. Something they'd been discussing earlier that'd had the pair of them in stitches, whatever the hell that'd been. Phil can't even remember.

“Phil?” Dan's saying, a note of panic in his voice. “What's up, is everything ok?”

“I, uh,” Phil says. “I didn't know who else to call, I – I'm at the hospital.”

“I'll be there in ten minutes,” Dan says, and hangs up.

-

“I'm sorry.”

“You don't have to keep saying that.”

“I know, but,” Phil lets out a breath, ducking his head for a moment so he's staring at the table, hooking his hands behind his neck. “I shouldn't have called so late.”

“I wasn't sleeping,” Dan reassures him, bumping their shoulders together in a way that's somehow comforting.

They're sitting in some 24 hour café that seems to be cashing in on a night-time clientèle, if the list of blood substitutes on the menu is anything to go by. Dan had suggested they come here – Phil didn't even know it existed, and now they're crammed into a tiny little bench seat together, two cups of coffee spiralling steam in front of them.

“I mean, you were right,” Phil says, sitting up properly and looking over at Dan. “Safety in numbers, you were right.”

“I didn't...” Dan starts, faltering. “I...”

“Sorry,” Phil says, feeling terrible. “I didn't mean, like...it's not your fault, I just. I didn't really think anything would happen, you know?”

Dan nods.

“What,” He says, then stops. When Phil looks over at him, he's picking up his coffee cup, staring at it intently. “What exactly happened? Like – you don't have to tell me, but – but you're not hurt, and – and you call me at, like, 2am, and -”

Phil swallows hard.

“I was just – I thought I'd go to work to, like, check on Di,” Phil says, feeling like he's repeating exactly what he said to the police.

“On your day off?” Dan says. “Phil.”

“I know,” Phil says. “But you can't switch off shitty sleeping patterns, and I was awake anyway, so – so I thought I'd head over there, I dunno. I wanted to walk.” He sees the walk in his mind, like a reel of film's playing behind his eyes, flickering projections of the evening flashing ghostly and unreal in his mind. “And – and I heard a noise, like – up by McDonald's. I mean – I mean it used to be McDonald's, before – you know.”

“I know,” Dan says, softly.

The McDonald's Phil's thinking of had moved location years before, when the blue zone had been implemented, but the old building's still there, boarded up on a street of shops, imprint of a ghostly _M_  still visible on the brickwork.

“Right,” Phil says. “And – and I thought maybe it was a cat, or – or maybe I should check, and – and I went down the alley between, like, the shops and the houses, and -”

And there had been someone lying there on the ground, breathing wetly as they bled to death in the dark. Phil had had his knife gripped tight in his hand, on high alert, edging forwards. He'd only approached the person when he'd been sure they were alone, and by the time he was on the ground next to them, shining his torch and feeling for injuries, he was already too late.

“...throat was just,” Phil gulps, feeling his own throat bob with a shudder. “Just – gone. Like whoever it was had been so hungry they hadn't even...” He trails off, gulping, and takes a sip of coffee to avoid having to look at Dan.

“What did you do?” Dan asks gently, after a moment's silence.

Phil shakes his head.

“Just stayed with him,” He says, making a conscious effort to keep his voice steady. “Just – I stayed with him.”

The guy – an indistinct figure in the gloom, dark haired, his glasses knocked askew – had held Phil's hand tightly in the dark. He'd kept holding when Phil had shrugged off his jacket and tried to clean up some of the blood – when he'd reached up to make sure his glasses were sitting on his nose properly.

He'd held on the whole time Phil was calling 999, and when Phil had reassured him, in shaky, uncertain whispers, that everything was going to be alright.

“But, like – I was too late, I dunno,” Phil mutters, staring hard at the counter of the café. The woman behind it is tapping away on her phone, and Phil watches the movement of her fingers across the room rather than looking at Dan's face.

“There's nothing you could've done,” Dan says, in a strange voice. He's quiet for a moment, and when he speaks again his voice is a little stronger. “That's – that's not how this stuff works, Phil. It's not like you can sweep in and save everyone. You had no way of knowing-”

“But I was _there_ ,” Phil says, faintly.

It wasn't that he'd never seen anyone injured before. It wasn't that. He'd seen plenty of injured people when he'd been living back home. There had been countless times when he'd rushed to unhook the first aid kit from the back of the kitchen door, ready to bandage himself up.

It wasn't seeing a dead person, either. He's seen plenty of dead people in his time.

It was the helplessness of it all, he thinks. Seeing someone dying and being able to do nothing about it – just having to sit with them and wait and say calming, kind things, things that wouldn't matter or make a difference in the end.

“I'm sorry,” Dan says, sounding small and helpless.

“It's ok,” Phil says.

-

Dan insists on walking him home.

“Safety in numbers,” He says, firmly, before they leave the warmth of the café. Phil's hardly about to argue with him.

“Ok,” He says. “But I want to drop in on Di before I go home. I want to make sure everything's ok up there,” He adds, louder, when Dan shows signs of protesting.

“That vamp's still out there,” Dan reminds him.

“I know.”

“Fine,” Dan says. “But stay close, alright?”

There's a moment after he says it that his eyes seem to flicker across Phil's face in a way that makes heat rush to his face.

“I will,” Phil promises, softly.

They walk to the library in silence, keeping near to each other in the yellow-lit streets. Phil's holding his knife tightly in his pocket, his heart thudding.

 _Please_ , he keeps thinking. _Please_ , _I don't want there to be anyone else,_ please...

When they reach the library, it's obvious there's something wrong immediately. All of the regular patrons are huddled together in the car park, some of them smoking. They're all vamps, not a sign of any of their human regulars.

“Di sent the breathers home,” One of the vamps – a short guy called Justin – explains when Phil asks what's happening. “They reckon that crazed red class sucker's in there. You know, the one who's been snacking on everyone in the area.”

Phil swears and rushes off in the direction of the library entrance.

“Oh no,” He says, when he sees Di hunched over the boot of her car again. “Oh fuck, no, please, shit...”

“We should go,” Dan says, hurrying alongside him, his voice still muffled by his scarf. “We should wait 'til the response team can get here, someone will have called them, Phil-”

Phil ignores him, approaching Di.

“What's the plan?” He asks, businesslike and curt.

“URT should take about twenty minutes,” Di says, loading a gun as she talks, apparently completely unsurprised to see him there on his day off. “And the mark's still in there, so – so we get in and we get out, and we neutralise the problem.”

She's so calm, so matter of fact about the whole situation. Phil averts his eyes when the hand that momentarily sets the gun down seems to tremble.

“Ok,” Phil says. His brain's a mess of thoughts – of that unknown guy earlier, the sober faces of the police officers who'd interviewed him at the hospital, the softness of Dan's voice over the phone. Di's right, the nearest response centre's about fifteen minutes away, so adding time to mobilise and set off the Undead Response Team should get here in twenty minutes.

Twenty minutes is more than enough time, he thinks.

“Got any knives that're bigger than this?” He asks, pulling his pocket knife from his pocket to show her.

“Think they're under the passenger seat,” Di says, shutting the boot and moving around to the side of the car.

It's worrying how easy it is to slip back into that old mindset, learned on long evenings back home when he was growing up. It was always the moment when Phil's mum would unhook the old gun from the kitchen wall – ostensibly for decoration at any other time, well cared for and polished, but as soon as she reached up there and unhooked it it was like a veil fell down across Phil's eyes, and the sweet family kitchen morphed into a war room, a place where strategies were discussed and troops deployed.

Now he's standing in a cold car park, watching Di look for her knives, feeling this weird, sick, detached feeling. Even the cold in the air doesn't seem to be affecting him so much.

“You're not really gonna do this?” Dan says.

Phil looks over at him. It takes a moment to switch tracks back, to get out of this mindset of weapons and danger, but he feels himself soften at the concerned furrow of Dan's brow.

“Someone has to.”

Dan opens his mouth for a second and Phil thinks he's about to protest, but he doesn't.

“I'm coming with you,” He says.

Phil looks at him – at his eyes and the determination on his face – for a long moment, broken only when Di says, “Here.”

Feeling slightly flustered, Phil accepts the offered weapon off her. It's a hunting knife, small in comparison to the other weapons Di has but much bigger and sharper than the one Phil has.

“And this,” She says, handing him a tranquilliser. When Dan makes a questioning noise, she adds, “We're not technically allowed to take down marks unless-”

“Unless they pose an immediate threat to our lives, yeah, yeah,” Phil finishes, feeling like he's sixteen again. “Ok, so – let's go.”

“Er, wait,” Di says, hand on Dan's chest before he can move to follow. “He's a civilian.”

“He knows what he's doing,” Phil says, thinking of Dan's hidden knife.

“He's also right here,” Dan points out, irritably.

“He'll slow us down,” Di says, ignoring him. “We only have a small window of opportunity-”

“He's with me,” Phil says, but it doesn't sound as impressive as he thought it would, especially not when he's certain that Di could fold him up and put him in her pocket if the mood took her.

Di's mouth becomes a very thin line, and Phil thinks she might actually yell at him for one terrifying moment. Then she just nods.

“On your head,” She says, and makes a move off in the direction of the library side door.

“Jesus,” Dan says under his breath as they follow.

“She means if something happens to you it's my fault,” Phil says in a low voice. “And she's right.”

“Nothing's gonna happen to me,” Dan says, and Phil hears rather than sees him drawing his own knife. “I'll cover you, ok?”

Phil looks back at him for a second. He looks strange in the shadows, something about his face in that moment making Phil want to shudder.

“Ok,” He says.

-

Inside, the library's as starkly lit as it is on any ordinary work night. Somehow, just with gestures, Di manages to tell Phil that he and Dan should check the stacks while she combs the lower floor.

“If you hear me trying to come through on this,” She breathes in the quietest voice possible, patting her walkie talkie. “It means I'm in shit, ok? Same goes for you.”

Phil nods. He knows any sort of noise is dangerous because of vamps and their superior hearing – too dangerous for them to actually communicate via the walkie talkies the way they would normally.

Di nods, then stalks off across the library floor, footsteps silent on the carpet. Phil swallows, and starts edging along the back wall towards the stairs to the stacks. He's impressed with how quiet Dan is behind him – it sounds like he's not even breathing. Phil's trying to gasp in the smallest, quietest breaths, but he doesn't think he'll be able to keep it up for long without getting light headed.

The whole situation is surreal. He's trying to access the calm place in the back of his mind, the place where he rationalises the weirdest of situations and keeps the roaring panic out, but it's proving difficult. Mostly because everything seems so normal – normal night, normal quiet library, the smell of the books and the carpet cleaner soft in his nose like always.

Maybe it's because he keeps thinking about that guy, and the soft, clogged-up noise of him choking on his own blood. Maybe it's because Dan's here next to him, vulnerable and wanting to help, and Phil has no way of knowing if he can actually use that knife to defend himself or if it's all just bravado.

Now would be a very bad time to discover that Dan has a death wish.

Phil's heart's beating hard by the time they reach the stairs, noiselessly ascending to the second floor. His hand is slippery with sweat on the tranquilliser, and he stops to wipe his palm on his jeans.

Dan reaches out and squeezes his wrist, once, then lets go. His eyes are wide and he jerks his head, first one way, then the other. It's pretty easy to guess he's trying to say they should split up. Phil just shakes his head and starts walking towards the glass doors near the printers that lead into the main research section of the library.

It feels a little like a nightmare, having to pad silently past the usually busy work tables, gulping in the dead silence. Something about the air up here makes his skin prickle. His mum used to always emphasize the importance of trusting his instincts and he somehow just _knows_ – he knows the vamp's up here somewhere.

He turns, planning on telling Dan this somehow, but Dan's already moving, cutting across to the centre aisle of bookshelves with purpose. Phil's stomach drops and he rushes after him. Dan has his knife drawn, and Phil wonders if he has the same instinctive feeling of something being wrong up here that Phil does.

They're doomed anyway, Phil thinks, wildly, keeping as close to Dan as he can, tightening his grip on his knife in his left hand. His heart's beating so hard there's no way the vamp hasn't heard them approaching already. Even so, he keeps peering down each aisle of books they pass – all of them empty, feeling like the tension might kill him. Everything's so quiet that he feels like he's in a bubble, or he's lost his sense of hearing somehow – aware of nothing but the loud rush of blood in his ears and Dan, walking so close in front of him, silent and outwardly calm.

There's a noise up ahead, and Phil slams into Dan on instinct, pushing him out of the way and holding the tranquilliser up, aiming ahead. There's nobody there, but he definitely heard a noise. He edges forwards, Dan close behind, and turns into the next aisle of books, gun first.

It's a girl, slumped over against the bookshelf, quiet as a mouse. Her white shirt is dark with blood, and for a heart stopping moment Phil thinks she's dead. Except when Dan moves past him towards her she looks up, terrified, eyes wide, the whites bloodshot.

“She's back there,” She breathes, holding tight to her forearm, which is bleeding heavily. “She's – She's back there, by the desks, oh God-”

“It's ok,” Phil says, crouched on the carpet in front of her. He looks up at Dan, who's staring down at the blood-darkened carpet with nothing short of horror in his eyes. “It's ok, you're gonna be ok.” He straightens up, talking to Dan. “Get her out of here, I'll sort this.”

“Phil,” Dan says. Phil doesn't know if he's pleading or protesting. He doesn't know anything, except that he's not going to die in a library. Neither of them are.

“Get her out of here,” He repeats, voice barely a breath. “There's a first aid kit in the stairwell, should have some iron supplement stuff in there. _Go_ ,” He adds, raising his voice the tiniest amount when Dan just doesn't move, seeming frozen still with terror. “I'll be fine.”

He walks back down the aisle of books and heads off in the direction of the desks. His heart's beating so hard he feels like every breath should be a wheeze, but he's finally found the quiet place inside – the place he used to escape to as a kid, the place where he hid while he saved his brother's life.

He listens to the footsteps of Dan and the injured girl retreating before he walks out into the open. The vamp's not even trying to keep quiet anymore – he can hear the creak of footsteps up ahead, which doesn't bode well. Any vamp who's just stopped caring is far more dangerous than one calculated enough to stay quiet.

“URT's on its way,” He says, softly, because there's no need to raise his voice. She already knows he's here – it doesn't matter anymore. “Come downstairs with me and nobody else has to get hurt.”

He rounds the corner gun first, and his stomach drops.

It's Violet.

Violet, his friend, the same girl who'd kept him company all those lonely evenings, the same Violet who used to make him laugh and talk about old TV shows with him. The same Violet who made the lonely work nights bearable, most days.

She just stands there, slowly raising her hands up in surrender. The blood's all over her unsteady fingers, smeared down her pale forearms and soaked into her dark t-shirt.

Neither of them move for the longest moment. Violet just stands there, cowering a little like a cornered animal. Her eyes are glinting under the bright lights, and Phil doesn't know what to do.

“I was really hoping it wouldn't be you,” She says, finally, her voice sounding like it's been torn from her throat.

“You attacked someone where I work,” Phil says, eventually, his mouth dry. “Who did you think it'd be?”

Violet blinks tears out of her eyes and shakes her head.

“What're they gonna do to me now?” She asks. “What – what happens now?”

There's a lump rising in Phil's own throat, painful and solid like a stone.

“Red classification,” He says, because what else can he do? “You – you'll get moved to a special facility somewhere. A lock-up.”

“A prison,” Violet says, tears glinting on her cheeks.

Phil nods.

“That's – that's if it was you that did –“ A flash of that unknown guy lying there on the ground, his hand cold in Phil's. ”If you did all of it -”

She nods, laughing through tears.

“'Course it was me,” She says. Her face looks wrong somehow – she looks devastated. “I – I never should've gone cold turkey, I – I could feel it getting worse in me, you know, the – the – the _feeling_ , and I just couldn't handle it. And blood substitutes didn't do anything, and – and living with Penny made it worse, and -” She covers her face with her hands and just cries.

When she slides down the wall to the floor she leaves a red streak on the white paintwork.

“She's gonna hate me so much,” Violet says, between great wheezing breaths. “She's – God, I can't believe I did this, I can't-”

Phil's feet are moving without him consciously deciding to walk, and he doesn't stop until he's on the floor beside her with his arms around her.

He sits and holds her close while she shakes against him, crying into his shoulder, and swallows hard around the lump in his throat.

-

Outside, a while later, everything's drenched in the blue and red lights of the recovery vans. Phil's dimly aware that he's covered in someone else's blood again. He breathes in the cool evening air in gasps, trying to stay calm.

He thinks about Penny, who he never got to meet. He thinks about how hopeful Violet had been, how sweet it had been to see her being bashful and shy about her feelings. He thinks about all the nights she'd kept him company at work, talking to him during long quiet hours reshelving books and patrolling the computers.

He doesn't realise that he's not doing so well with staying calm at all until Dan appears in front of him all of a sudden. He looks paler than Phil's ever seen him – bone pale, bleached white. Phil's first instinct is to ask him if he's ok but he feels like there's something huge stuck in his throat.

“It's ok,” Dan says, and when he reaches out to touch Phil's arm it's like his hand's barely there. “Phil, it's ok. Just – just breathe, alright?”

Phil shakes his head and tries to even out his shuddering breaths, feeling stupid and exposed when his eyes start stinging. He wishes Dan couldn't see him right now, especially when Dan's looking like that – completely, utterly still, his face a mask somehow. Phil can't figure out why he's being so weird until he moves his hand and Dan moves back the tiniest amount, letting him go, and he realises he still has blood on his hands.

He thinks about Dan's reaction upstairs, the blood on the carpet. He's clearly not accustomed to the sight of it. Phil wishes it was still new and unfamiliar and terrifying to him, too, the way it was back when he was a kid.

“Oh God,” He says, trying to wipe it off onto his clothes. “I should – I should – where's the – we need to -”

“Phil, it's ok,” Dan repeats, his expression softening. His face is lit up strangely in the flashing lights for a moment, and when he unexpectedly reaches out for Phil there's nothing Phil can do but hold onto him as tight as he can.

It's the first time someone's hugged him like that in a long time. Like _they_ want to comfort _him_. Phil squeezes his eyes shut tight and doesn't let go.

"I thought vamps could change," He says, voice muffled by Dan's shoulder. "But - she - she tried so _hard_ , and - and it didn't mean anything in the end. Does that mean none of them can change? That it's impossible?"

Dan's quiet for so long that Phil thinks maybe he just didn't hear.

"I don't know," He says, at last, in a whisper.

-

Dan calls them both a taxi to Phil's flat this time.

“It's prime time,” Phil protests, exhaustedly. “They'll charge so much, and it's literally two seconds away-”

“I already called it,” Dan says, in a tone that brooks no argument. “Too late. You need to get home.”

Phil's too tired to argue. He feels painfully fragile, like he might burst into tears at any moment – all he wants is a shower and his own bed, and to be somewhere where nobody can look at him.

Dan doesn't say anything, but he keeps a hand tight on Phil's arm the whole time they're waiting for the cab to show up. When it does, Phil clambers gratefully into the back, brain buzzing while Dan gives him Phil's address. Part of him wants to comment on that – on how it's a little weird that Dan just _knows_ Phil's address offhand like that, but it occurs to him that that'd be one of those things that'd frighten Dan away for a few days.

“Just here, thanks,” Dan says. The cab pulls up on at the pavement outside Phil's house. “Just – just gimme a sec, I'll be right back.” And he climbs out of the car with Phil, walking him to the front door.

“You don't have to,” Phil says. “I'm -”

“Yeah, you're a hunter, you could chop me in half with your mind, I know,” Dan says, all in a rush. “But you're also my friend, and I want to make sure you get home in one piece after the night you've had, ok?”

“Ok,” Phil says, stuck on the word _friend_. They approach Phil's building, and he shrugs at the main door. “I mean – here we are, don't you feel daft now for making so much of a fuss?”

“Nope,” Dan says, seriously. Then he drops his solemn manner, shifting in place in the usual awkward way Phil's come to know pretty well by now. “Now, um. Sleep. Like, a lot, ok? And I'll see you-”

“You could stay with me,” Phil blurts out. He flushes when the words are barely out of his mouth, the look of surprise on Dan's face enough to make him regret saying anything. “I just – I dunno, forget I said that, I'm sorry-”

“You should sleep,” Dan says, stiffly, and Phil can just tell this is one of those things he's gonna end up mulling over a lot over the next few weeks when Dan inevitably drifts away from him. “You should, um. Sleep, and – and I'll see you tomorrow, ok?”

He doesn't look at Phil for too long while he speaks, eyes darting away like he can't bear to catch Phil's eye.

“Tomorrow,” Phil says, quietly.

Dan nods.

“Just get some rest,” He says, and walks away.

Phil doesn't let himself breathe again until he's safely locked in his flat, breathing in the familiar smell of his own deodorant and the coffee he'd had that morning. It feels like it was an age ago that he was here last.

He ends up lying awake in the dark for a long time.

-

Dan gets back in the car, breathing out a sigh and closing his eyes.

“Where next?” The driver asks him.

“Main Gate, please.”

If he's surprised, he doesn't say anything about it. It's probably the best reaction Dan's had about his home destination for a long time.

“Main Gate it is,” He says, and starts driving.

The journey doesn't take that long. In fact, Dan could've easily walked, but getting a cab lets him pretend for a little while longer.

He feels like he spends most of his time pretending.

“Main Gate,” The cab driver says. “That'll be thirty.”

It's said with all the confidence of a man who probably has a gun stashed under his car seat. Dan hands the notes over without comment and gets out of the car.

He thinks about Phil, and the way he'd ordered Dan to leave in the library. He thinks about his shaky breaths and the sound of his heart.

He thinks about the fact that he'd probably been too freaked out earlier to notice that it was just _his_ breaths that misted in the cold air. Dan had been too worried to bother about all of his scarves when Phil had been upset outside the library.

Seeing Phil like that had hurt, somehow. It struck something inside Dan that he hadn't thought existed anymore. Then again, a lot of things about Phil did that - his smile, and the way he laughed, and the way he looked when he was really interested in something.

“ _You could stay_ ,” Dan says to himself as he walks along, hands in his pockets, thinking of the look on Phil's face as he'd said it. “Just, like, invite the soulless murderer into your house, Phil, that's a great idea.”

He swallows hard, feeling sick as he looks up at the monitoring tower, the bright searchlight flaring through the black sky. The Main Gate is huge – Dan can only assume it's designed to let tanks in or something, not that he's ever seen any. It must be about ten feet high, stretching out across what used to be the driveways of three houses. There's a much smaller gate in it, off to the right, that allows people in and out.

With a sigh, Dan opens the smaller gate and lets himself into the blue zone.


End file.
